


the softest things we ever did

by hideyseek



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Ariadne Eating Food, Attempt at Humor, Complimentary Hotel Items, Eames' Stupid Cupid Exchange, Eames-centric (Inception), Feelings, Fluff, Hotels, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mixed Media, POV Eames (Inception), Pet Names, Photographs, Pining, Run-On Sentences, Sharing a Bed, Sickfic, delayed flight, eventually, i know two (2) cool facts about nature, ish, not like using a metaphor, overuse of literary terms as the actual term, they're both in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22724545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hideyseek/pseuds/hideyseek
Summary: Arthur gets sick. Eames gets involved.Arthur takes the notebook back and starts several sentences in the direction of,I don’t need your help, Eames. After a few attempts, Arthur sighs and sticks the notebook in his trouser pocket and pulls Eames up out of the chair. His hand is dry and smooth, and Eames’ palm smells like vanilla and citrus after he lets go.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 212
Collections: Eames' Stupid Cupid 2020





	the softest things we ever did

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whirling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whirling/gifts).



> this has been A Process, let me just say, and so i have a lot of people to thank: 
> 
> first of all, huge thanks to teacuphuman for managing this event, so i could sign up and actually fricking write something for once in my life. thanks especially for the two-weeks-to-go check in, which freaked me out and made me actually sit down and finish a draft.
> 
> thanks as well to whirling, for making me play in a different sandbox. i hope this fill at least touches vaguely on what you were hoping for! there’s definitely sickfic and eames, but just a smidgen of vulnerability. 
> 
> last but not at all least, thanks to musingsofaretiredunicorn for both the betaing and the convenient timing of your recent cold. lots of the details in this are ... from talking to you. all remaining mistakes are mine.

Eames is worried about Arthur. 

He doesn’t usually go in for this sort of thing, especially not with Arthur, who’s demonstrated before that he’ll be passive aggressive first and realize you were trying to help him later. Much later. 

But this whole job, Arthur’d been a miserable, sniffly bastard, with his painfully smothered coughs and the way he kept dragging his hand across his face to keep alert. Eames had gotten chest pains just watching Arthur shove himself through to the end of the job. 

But now the job is done and Eames is going to make sure Arthur takes care of himself if he has to blackmail him into doing it. Not that Arthur is incapable of taking care of people — it just seems to Eames that Arthur is not high on Arthur’s list of priorities. 

Conveniently and somewhat consequently, Arthur is quite high on Eames’ list of priorities.

Eames has it all planned out. When Arthur gets back to the warehouse for his usual post-job scan of the working space, he will indubitably observe that Eames is still in the building. Eames has draped himself roguishly across one of the sagging spinny chairs for optimal _here I am_ -ness. Eames will say something inane about the job. Arthur will roll his eyes like he does whenever he finds Eames funny but has decided that for some internal Arthurian reason he absolutely cannot express it. Which is fine, because Eames knows his tricks by now. 

Then Arthur will say something back, something mean and hilarious. Eames will banter with him for a bit and cunningly weasel in the message that Arthur really should drop in on a physician or something. And then that’ll be that. Eames can congratulate himself for taking care of his loved ones, and he won’t hear from Arthur again until the man leaves a professionally stilted voicemail about some job that doesn’t need a forger at all but which Eames will work anyway because it’s Arthur asking. 

Eames shifts in his chair a bit, eyes still on the door. 

He’d elected to reclaim the grey chair he’d commandeered during the job, and predictably one of the springs in the thing was digging into his bum. He shifts around, trying to get it to poke somewhere that isn’t the middle of his left arsecheek, and momentarily drops his gaze. When he looks back up, Arthur’s standing wide-eyed in the doorway.

“Hello,” says Eames eventually, when it doesn’t seem like the staring is going to end. “You alright there?”

Arthur picks his way across the warehouse toward Eames, and his cheeks flush as he nears. Eames tilts his head to keep eye contact with Arthur when he stills in front of him. Arthur’s jaw works, and Eames lets himself enjoy the shift in Arthur’s face, the barest hint of a tensed muscle in his high-boned cheek. 

Eventually, red to his ears, Arthur scribbles something in his handy dandy leather work notebook and thrusts it at Eames, stabbing a finger at the relevant words. Bewildered, Eames takes it.

None of the plan had involved _Arthur not being able to say words_. This is what Eames fucking gets for deviating from the norm and trying to plan things, he supposes. 

He jerks back up to look at Arthur, who shrugs and narrows his eyes a bit, but really doesn’t seem to be joking. Time for a swift change of tack — never let it be said Eames isn’t quick on his feet. “I was ah, wondering if you wanted or needed a hand packing up,” he says. This is untrue. “You seemed a bit under the weather, of late. Just currying your favor, darling.” This is less untrue. Eames is always, in one way or another, currying Arthur’s favor.

Eames holds his breath and Arthur’s gaze. Arthur takes the notebook back and starts several sentences in the direction of, _I don’t need your help, Eames_. After a few attempts, Arthur sighs and sticks the notebook in his trouser pocket and pulls Eames up out of the chair. His hand is dry and smooth, and Eames’ palm smells like vanilla and citrus after he lets go.

The silence as they’re working makes everything feel intimate. He knows it’s bullshit, that good relationships are built on strong communication and honesty. Eames wonders if he’s projecting but Arthur keeps touching warm hands to his shoulder or elbow for his attention, and Eames aches softly in the moments between.

He looks up once from drying the empty Somnacin vials to glance at Arthur and Arthur isn’t looking back, so Eames just ducks his head and keeps going.

— 

They’ve moved into the fourth step of Arthur’s post-con list when Arthur’s phone chimes. The fourth step is depositing lawn chairs into various Chicago tips, and Eames’ thighs have gone loose and shaky in the way that happens after he works them too hard lifting large objects or after very thorough sex.

“What is it?” says Eames at the next red light, leaning over. Arthur tilts the phone screen for Eames to look at, tilts his head to look at Eames. 

“Mm,” says Eames to buy himself time. His hands shift on the wheel as the light turns yellow. “Didn’t you check out this morning?” He turns to Arthur for a response — it’s an odd shift, having to look at Arthur to allow any response, consciously remembering to look at Arthur instead of away.

Arthur shoots him a look that Eames interprets as, _Clearly I cannot be the first businessperson to have lost their voice prior to booking a hotel room for the night_ . _There are social rules that exist for this; I just need to guess what they are_.

“Right,” Eames admits, clenching his hands on the steering wheel, eyes back on the traffic light. “I mean, just.” His breathing is going a little funny. He glances toward Arthur and accidentally meets his eyes. He looks quickly away and mercifully the light changes.

Eames hits the gas, and they lurch forward. “I’ve a perfectly good hotel room with two beds that I don’t mean to check out of for another week,” says Eames. He has never been less tactful in his entire life, possibly. Setting aside the fact that his work involves actually doing it, Eames is engaging in the professional equivalent to shooting himself in the face.

Somehow, he’s still talking. “Could save you the trouble tonight on such short notice,” he’s saying. “And, you could get your own tomorrow morning when your voice is back, if the bad weather lasts that long.” This is not how he had meant to ask Arthur to spend a night with him, but now he can’t exactly take it back.

Arthur looks at him consideringly, thumbs at his phone for the weather. 

While Arthur looks at his phone, Eames looks at Arthur’s mouth instead of at the road. Arthur thinks, presumably, about the inclement weather. Eames thinks, vaguely, about kissing Arthur on the mouth. 

Eames has never heard gossip about Arthur fucking any of their colleagues, and Eames has heard gossip about _Cobb_ fucking one of their colleagues. Eames himself has only been talked about post-coitus a handful of times that he knows of, and never by Arthur.This is because Eames has impeccable taste, and because he knows better than to let one hopeful tryst get in the way of another. Not that the way Eames thinks about Arthur is particularly or at all tryst-like.

Arthur sucks at his lower lip. Eames glances briefly at the road and then back at Arthur. Arthur nods and gives Eames a thumbs up. Eames grins. 

Arthur smiles back, looser than Eames has ever seen him.

_—_

Arthur is a different person when he is not at work. Eames understands that most people are different people when they are not at work, himself included. But despite all of his careful study of everything Arthurian, Eames had not collected any data that could have helped him anticipate the particular disinclination toward self-care that Arthur displays.

Case in point: when they reach Eames’ hotel room, Arthur dumps his luggage gracelessly at the foot of the unoccupied bed and flops onto it with a groan.

“Charming,” says Eames, because he _is_ charmed by Arthur’s floppiness, just a bit. “Do you need anything?” Arthur flips him off without looking, then coughs, wet and painful. 

Once he turns off though, it seems he’s really _off_. Despite Eames’ repeated cajoling, he makes no move to get changed or take medication or turn his head to stop passively suffocating himself with the pillow or anything.

“Stay there,” says Eames at last, and retreats into the bathroom to call Ariadne for health advice. Arthur makes a pained mumble into the pillow that Eames suspects is completely coincidental. 

Eames has enough presence of mind to know that someone else caring for Arthur at this point is much better than Arthur caring for Arthur, but Eames’ experience is triage medicine: bullets and stab wounds and near-drowning, not a case of the common cold. Ariadne is the normalest person he knows.

The dial tone cuts off after two rings, and moments after that there’s a text.

— 

The salt arrives as a well-dressed woman with a fancy name tag proffering a tray containing a large handful of iodized salt packets. Eames thanks her. Behind him, Arthur muffles another cough into the pillow.

Arthur rolls over unsteadily when Eames approaches with a handful of shitty hotel room cups, and Eames takes this as an opportunity to ask, “Any updates on the flight?” Not that he particularly wants any.

Arthur frowns briefly without opening his eyes, opens his mouth like he means to say, _What’s it to you?_ He closes his mouth again and shakes his head. 

“Not a problem,” says Eames gamely, then adds, ““Salt water for you, there.” He sets the second, empty cup down alongside the first. “You can spit into this one.”

Arthur hauls himself upright, blinking owlishly at Eames. Eames nods toward the cups, and Arthur obediently drinks. Eames watches him dutifully swish the water around in his mouth and gargle politely, then glances away at Arthur’s prompting eyebrows so Arthur can spit into the second cup. 

After a few goes at this, Arthur clears his throat and hums a bit, and blinks in satisfaction when that produces noise. “Acceptable,” he rasps, and makes a face. “It’ll get better, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” says Eames inanely. “I suppose so.”

Arthur frowns at him and picks up the third cup, this one of tap water. Croakily, he manages, “You know you don’t have to hover, right? I’m not about to die or anything.” Eames nods and stays perched in his chair. Arthur rolls his eyes and sips carefully.

— 

By the time Eames deems it bedtime, Arthur is flagging but still gamely vocalizing every thought that passes through his head. He’d spent the most recent half hour talking about a production of _The Tale of Despereaux_ that he’d seen in college at a nearby repertory theatre. “It was just, something about the way they looked at each other when they were all playing music together,” he’d confided, listing warmly into Eames’s side, his words damp against Eames’ neck. “They just. They just, they had that _something_ , y’know?” 

Eames knows about that something. It’s the same something that keeps you and your team alive in a dream going wrong. “Bedtime,” he repeats, amused and fond. 

“Why do you think 10pm is time to be asleep, asshole,” Arthur complains _,_ hoarse but determined. “There’re two fucking hours left in today, and a bit of tomorrow to borrow between midnight and one.” He’s been running a low-grade fever since it occurred to Eames to check a few hours ago, but Eames couldn’t know how much discomfort Arthur was in from looking at him. It occurs to Eames uncomfortably that this isn’t new for Arthur.

“That’s a _terrible_ way of looking at things, darling,” Eames declares from the bathroom doorway. “We’re not subscribing to that workaholic nonsense.” Eyeing up his teammates and occasionally following up on the ogling is the only mixing of work and play that Eames participates in. Arthur rolls his eyes but at Eames’ direction cocoons himself further into the blankets, and eventually his hitching breathing smooths out. 

His eyes are closed when Eames circles back to check on him after brushing his teeth. There are shadows pooling at the edges of where the light hits the planes of Arthur’s face, and Eames thinks, _Chiaroscuro_. The arrangement of dark and light in a work of art. Eames’ chest hurts, and he puts out the lamp so he can exhale in darkness. 

—

Eames is woken too close to sunrise the next day by a horrific quacking noise coming from Arthur’s coat pocket, which he’d draped on the back of the complimentary hotel chair the previous night, smoothing out the fabric under Arthur’s watchful eye. He lurches out of bed and mumbles a grouchy, “Hello?” into the phone before he looks at the screen and realizes the noise is Arthur’s fucking _alarm_. He glares at it, turns it off, and hobbles back to bed. 

Out of something like habit or instinct, Eames glances over toward Arthur. Arthur sleeps with his arm jammed under the pillow and his elbow peeking out from under the case. There’s an imprint of the pillow pressed across Arthur’s right cheek, and Eames can’t quite keep himself from looking at it.

Some people collect objects, like quarters or spoons or up-and-coming startup companies. After Eames met sharp, professional Arthur the first time in dreamspace, he’d begun collecting moments of Arthur in mundanity.

There was _no way_ Arthur was real, he’d thought, with his neatly slicked-back hair, the precise color-contrasted lines of his suit. With the emphasis he always put on the t’s and d’s in his words like he’d internalized the concept of dotting his i’s and crossing his t’s a little too well. 

Eames had started hunting down the parts of Arthur that weren’t a carefully curated performance.

He’s got a few, now: Arthur falling asleep at a makeshift desk in a warehouse at 3am with his reading glasses pressed crookedly against the tabletop, Arthur picking at the bits of shredded lettuce he’d dropped on his shirt when he ate a sandwich. Arthur forgetting what country they were in and Arthur butchering his German when he apologized. Arthur putting on sunscreen and missing a spot on the back of his neck that Eames had lost the whole afternoon staring at. This doesn’t quite keep Eames from wanting more.

Eames thinks he dozes off for another handful of hours, or else he remains lost in thought. Either way, he resurfaces at a time his mobile informs him is 7:12am, to a sound he interprets as Arthur hacking up a fucking lung.

Eames’ thighs burn when he kneels next to Arthur. Arthur blinks hazily, drifts his eyes completely shut when Eames’ palm touches his forehead. It’s hot, and Arthur’s trembling under Eames’ hand. 

“Have you got medication in your luggage, darling,” asks Eames lowly, “I’ll bring it over, hm?” Arthur nods shallowly and Eames digs them out from the suitcase, returns to Arthur clutching two generic cold-cough-fever pills in his palm.

Eames remembers being sick as a child. The hazy memory of his mother rousing him in the middle of the night for sickly-sweet medicine and cold water. The cooling brush of her gentle hand over his forehead as he fell asleep again. The roles reversed, Eames can feel his heartbeat in his throat as clearly as he ever has before a high-stakes job.

Eames coaxes Arthur into swallowing the pills and smooths the back of his fingers across Arthur’s warm cheek. “Go back to sleep, alright, duck? See if you can’t coax that fever into breaking.”

He’s awake after that, jittery and closer to nervous than he’s used to. His chest hurts in a way he can’t quite place, and he rubs at it as he sits down at the complimentary hotel desk. Eames reads the news. 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg prevented a fatal blow to the Equal Rights Act, he reads. The L.A. county district attorney set up the dismissal of sixty thousand marijuana convictions. Arthur G. Levine sleeps curled in on himself under the complimentary hotel duvet. 

The outline of his shoulders moves slightly with every breath, up and down, the sheet draped over his face fluttering slightly on the exhale: white noise performed as proof of life, if not health. His hair is smeared in damp clumps across the pillowcase, and the wenis of one elbow peeks out from under the pillow. Arthur shifts and Eames starts, glancing guiltily back at his laptop.

He pulls up Arthur’s flight information for something to do. The fog is still too thick to fly through, and no new departure time has been set. There’s a cursory message from the airline, apologizing and promising that there will be more detailed updates later that day. 

In the bed, Arthur starts to push himself upright and Eames looks over sharply. Settled, Arthur sniffs and swallows and breathes out. “Eames? Did- did you make my noise name?” he whispers.

“I didn’t, no,” says Eames, trying not to laugh, his voice gentle and betraying. “How’re you feeling, duck?”

Arthur clears his throat and winces. “Ow,” he says petulantly, looking at Eames. Eames, who until this moment hasn’t experienced the particularly devastating combination of puffed-out cheeks and puppy-dog eyes that was Arthur petulant, says, “ _Darling_ ,” in a tone that conveyed nothing but his general fondness for Arthur.

Arthur breaks into a grin. “I’m doing just fine, Mr. Eames.”

— 

They’ve missed the hotel breakfast, because it’s late afternoon. 

Eames ends up calling for breakfast delivery from a local diner Arthur searches up on Yelp, the whole experience culminating in a sticky plastic bag that Eames collects a half hour later from a slightly disgruntled downstairs receptionist. 

They eat sitting too-close on Arthur’s hotel bed, Arthur sipping milky coffee with the duvet draped over his shoulders, Eames licking at his fingertips as he drips maple syrup all over his joggers. 

Arthur points at Eames’ thighs, pursing his mouth in mock disdain. “You’re showering after that, right? You’ll give the hotel staff a fright,” he accuses froggily.

Eames’ mind jumps to other things he’s done on hotel beds that would likely give housekeeping a fright. Arthur narrows his eyes like he knows what Eames is thinking about. 

“I,” starts Eames, at which point Arthur spills his coffee on the sheets, and they’re both too distracted to return to the topic. 

— 

Eames wanks in the shower because he’s been looking at Arthur messy-haired and satisfied and drowsily sat in a bed all afternoon, and because Arthur’s about to spend the rest of the day in Eames’ bed, wrapped in sheets that don’t have coffee and syrup all over them. 

Once he’s out, Eames tucks a towel around his waist. He scrubs another over his hair and slings it over his shoulders and shoves the bathroom door open with his bare shoulder, casual as anything. 

He clocks the subtle movement of Arthur glancing up when he steps out, but is too focused on the pleasant tingle of room-cold air against his skin and then on digging out jeans and a shirt from his luggage to notice that Arthur hasn’t moved from his position, frozen seated on the clean bed with his laptop in front of him and the rest of his omelette in a plate in his lap, staring in Eames’ direction with his jaw slack.

“Arthur,” says Eames, somewhat helplessly. 

He watches Arthur swallow and blink and drop his gaze and exhale. He watches Arthur stab something into his keyboard and pointedly not look at Eames.

“Want to, uh,” says Eames, because he doesn’t know how to get himself out of situations like this when he’s not the one who created them, “Want to watch a film or something?” Arthur nods, eyes on his laptop. Eames snatches up clothing and retreats, saying, “Why don’t you pick something?”

“Hey, what the hell is that,” says Eames when he walks back out. Onscreen, two terrified boys broomstick out of a roomful of fire. “We can’t watch that, I’m two films behind.”

Arthur scowls at him through a mouthful of egg and scribbles into his notebook.

Eames looks at the notebook on the bed. Possibly he has stopped breathing, he’s not really sure. He wants to do that. He _does not want to do that_. There is no fucking way in hell that would go well for anybody involved. 

He forcibly reminds his body that breathing is a necessary part of digging oneself out of the hole created by Arthur casually writing the words _pay-per-view porn_ into the leather-bound notebook he _uses for work_. 

“What about the nature channel?” he suggests desperately. “Do you like nature?”

It turns out that Arthur likes nature a lot. It turns out that Eames is exceptionally skilled at falling asleep to some stranger’s meandering narration.

— 

Eames slides back into consciousness in the familiar dimness of a hotel room with the curtains drawn, to a sound he eventually determines is Arthur gargling next to him. Eyes closed, Eames flops his hand around and hits flesh. Arthur makes an odd noise a little bit like surprised choking and spits in a quiet rush of noise. The bed dips as Arthur leans over. “Eames,” he says, “Eames, are you finally awake?”

“Whassmatter,” says Eames, eyes still closed. Arthur is somewhere next to him wearing something shorter than jeans. He had not expected this. 

“You missed a really good section about squid brains,” Arthur explains, “There was also a good bit about duck penises. Did you know they’re shaped like _corkscrews_?”

Eames will not be able to un-know this, ever. He resignedly opens his eyes very slowly and is greeted by Arthur grinning palely above him, saying, “Also, isn’t it time for dinner?”

For a moment, Eames can’t quite figure out how Arthur could have gotten into the position without getting ridiculously close to Eames on the bed, but then Eames glances sideways and stops with his eyes level with Arthur’s trouser-clad crotch. 

He slams his eyes shut. “Nghdidn’t, Arth’r,” he manages, licking around the inside of his mouth. It’s gross, but less socially gross than staring at your hot coworker’s dick for several brainless minutes.

“Yeah,” says Arthur agreeably, “Sure.” It sounds like he’s smiling. 

“You sound better,” Eames observes, eyes still determinedly closed. 

“If you round up just a bit, I’m healthy again,” says Arthur. The bed shakes a little. Arthur’s bouncing a little bit. He’s _bouncing_ , a little bit.

“Yeah,” Eames drawls, amused despite himself. He opens his eyes to look at Arthur. “Healthy, that’s you.”

“Hey,” says Arthur without heat. He’s holding out his phone. “Also, the airline texted, and my flight’s been rescheduled to tomorrow just before noon.”

That gets Eames’ attention. “Oh,” says Eames stupidly. His chest hurts. 

He sits up to look at Arthur properly. Arthur looks different, hair fluffed and voluminous from a recent wash. He’s wearing a pair of glasses Eames has never seen before, with soft-edged square frames that break up the line of his face. He looks like a stranger, suddenly, like someone else that doesn’t coexist with the Arthur that Eames has been looking at and after all this time. 

His collected pieces of Arthur in mundanity seem meaningless now, detritus from forced conversations and a life that is mostly work. Eames has heard of dyads and partnerships in dreamshare breaking up after unexpected intimacy, Mal and Cobb just one of dozens of casualties. For an instant of thoughtless panic he’s desperate to keep Arthur, to say something or quit dreamshare or — 

“Hey,” Arthur’s looking at him, eyes a little bit narrowed. “Dinner?” he says again, in a way that sounds to Eames like he’s consciously softening his voice. “We can call for room service this time.”

Eames breathes out hard, tells himself he needs to respect Arthur’s agency. Tells himself he’s still allowed to enjoy tonight. He fumbles for the complimentary hotel telephone and hands it to Arthur with a flourish. “Yes,” he agrees, meeting Arthur’s eyes. “Let’s have dinner.”

— 

“Thanks, Eames,” says Arthur, later that night as they’re falling asleep. He’s curled up on the far side of the bed, but his breathing shifts the duvet against Eames’ bare shoulder. His voice is quiet and still kind of raspy, but no less earnest for it.

Eames stares at the box of tissues on the nightstand, light against the muted grey of the rest of the room. It was Arthur, so it was nothing. Arthur’s flying out tomorrow, so it was _nothing_. 

“It was nothing,” he says aloud into the darkness. He’d turned himself to face the room instead of the back of Arthur’s neck, because he’s an adult with restraint.

“ _Really_ , Eames,” Arthur says, voice softening as he falls asleep. “I fucking mean it. Thank you. I’m glad you offered this.”

“Of course,” Eames whispers. “Goodnight, darling.”

“G’night, Mr. Eames,” Arthur mumbles. Eames smiles in reply, breathes out in a long stream of air that rustles against his pillow, near and loud.

In the false solitude of darkness, Eames is too aware of Arthur in his bed, under the same duvet, the weight of him dipping the mattress away from Eames. Arthur’s breathing nudges at the edges of Eames’ hearing: white noise performed as proof of life. It’s a little mucus-y, the exhale, a little comforting.

This isn’t the first time they’ve shared a single bed — back when they were both new to dreamshare, before the mind theft market had gotten its roots down, there’d been plenty of low-budget jobs during which Eames drifted off to the sound of Arthur’s polite, near-silent breathing and the muffled, arrhythmic _taptap-tap-taptaptap_ of his fingers against his keyboard protector just beside him. They’ve gone to sleep in the same room more often than some married couples Eames knows. 

But this is the first time Eames can recall Arthur falling into natural sleep in his presence. Something about sharing this slow transition with him feels over-familiar, presumptuous without any logical reason to be. Like it could be synecdoche for the entirety of their relationship, but for its novelty. It feels to Eames like he has settled and is relying on something he doesn’t quite understand yet, something he’s still watching from a distance. 

Eames falls asleep to the clock glowing 11:11, hoping beyond reason that something of this will last.

— 

Eames wakes the next day with an unexpected tenseness somewhere in his nasal cavity that pinches when he tries to breathe. When he swallows, something rasps across the back of his throat and he breaks out into painful, dry coughs. When the coughs subside, Eames looks up and Arthur is staring down at him, wide-eyed.

Eames opens his mouth to say, _Quit it with the staring, darling, this is hardly new. You were the worse version of this just two days ago_ , and nothing comes out of his mouth.

Arthur’s eyes narrow. “Eames,” he says, and a corner of Eames’ mind notes that he’s back to his normal voice. “The goal wasn’t to stop me from being sick by transferring the illness to you, y’know.” And then Arthur swallows and adds, “You know, Eames.” He stops encouragingly.

Eames looks back at him. His head is full of cotton and mucous. He does not know. 

Arthur continues casually, “They always overbook those flights, and it’s not like I’m headed to LA for any reason but habit. I can stay for a bit until you’re able to fend for yourself again. After all,” He smirks. “It’s not like I can get what you’re having, anyway.” 

Eames inhales a little too hard in his pleased surprise, and breaks off into a fit of coughing. 

“Ohh,” cooes Arthur, who’s staring at Eames again and overall seems to be far too amused by this turn of events. “Here.” 

He passes Eames his notebook and pen.

**Author's Note:**

> This is, by several thousand words, the longest and most complex thing I've written in my life, academic papers notwithstanding. In the process, I've learned so fucking much about pacing and consistent characterization and The Revision Process, it's been really lovely. 
> 
> If you liked this, consider [following me on tumblr](https://hideyseek.tumblr.com/) or [reblogging the post about this fic](https://hideyseek.tumblr.com/post/190830285248/wahoo-the-eames-stupid-cupid-2020-fic-is-online)!


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